THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Readings in Developmental Linguistics: 2020Lecture 1

First Language Acquisition

• Language acquisition is the process by which humans learn to use words to communicate

• Grammar, which is a set of mental rules that characterizes all of the sentences of a language, must be mastered in order to learn a language

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics/Theories_and_Models_of_Language_Acquisition

Stages of FLA:• Cooing - 6 months - use phonemes from every

language

• Babbling - 9 months - selectively use phonemes from their native language

• One-word utterances - 12 months- start using single words

• Telegraphic speech - 2 years- multi-word utterances that lack in function

• Normal speech - 5 years- almost normal developed speech”

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

1. Behaviourist Theory (‘nurture’)2. Innateness Theory (‘nature’)3. Constructivism*:

– Cognitive (Piaget)– Socio-Cultural /‘Interactionist’ (Vygotsky)* Both are ‘Marxist’ learning models

Behaviourist TheoryB.F. Skinner (1904–1990)

• Verbal Behaviour (1957)

– Λ = conditioned reflexes– Operational conditioning =

rewards and punishments for behaviour

– language learning = process of habit formation

Innateness Theory

Noam Chomsky (1960)• Λ = fundamental part of the

human genome; λ is what makes humans human

• Λ acquisition = natural part of maturation

• Brain contains linguistic information at birth (LAD)

• All humans have inborn grammatical ideas (UG)

Chomsky

• Language is innate: we are born with a capacity for language

• Environmental learning alone cannot account for language acquisition (Language is too complex, with an unlimited combination of sounds, words, and phrases)

• Generative Grammar – described the syntax of a natural language is in accordance with

general Principles & specific Parameters (P&P) (i.e. markers, switches) that are either turned on or off for particular languages.

Eric Lenneberg The Capacity of Language Acquisition (1964)

─ "Species typical" trait.─ Universal appearance across

time for a group. ─ No learning of the trait is

possible.─ Individual development of a

trait rigidly follows a given schedule regardless of the particular experience of the organism.

Eric Lenneberg

─ 1967─ CPHArgued against the psychological implications of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

─ 'linguistic and non-linguistic events must be separately observed and described before they can be correlated.”

Kuniyoshi L. Sakai. 2005. Language Acquisition and Brain Development. Science 04 Nov 2005: Vol. 310, Issue 5749, pp. 815-819

Constructivism (Cognitive)

Jean Piaget (1896–1980)─ Children do not think

like adults ─ 4 (universal) stages of

cognitive development

ConstructivismSocio-Cultural/ Interactionist

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)• Λ – result of social

interaction• Grammar precedes logic

– Speech structures become the basic structures of their thinking.

Verbal thought is not innate: “a connection between word and thought originates and grows in the human mind in the course of social interaction, in many ways, shaped by society.”

The conception of word-meaning as a unit of both generalising thought and social interchange is of

incalculable value for the study of thought and language. Vygotsky: Language and Thought (1934)

LEV VYGOTSKY

SOCIAL-HISTORICAL THEORY OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT

• Social and cultural interactions are critical to learning

• Individuals create psychological tools to learn and to master their behavior

Cultural influences - Tools and signs - Cultural artifacts

- Language

Mediating mechanisms

Social Process

Instruction (Zone of Proximal Development)

Biological Factors Environmental Factors with emphasis on Sociocultural factors

BEHAVIORDevelopment

POTENTIAL LEVEL

ACTUAL LEVEL

INSTRUCTION

LEARNING

ZPD

The zone of proximal development

“ . . . is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”

Lev Vygotsky, 1935

CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES

Vygotsky Piagetvs.

1. Cognitive development is primarily a function of:

Socio-cultural interaction Adult-child interaction

Individual construction Active agency

CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES

Vygotsky Piagetvs

2. ROLE OF LANGUAGE AND ‘PRIVATE’ SPEECH

Language critical –

egocentric speech becomes thought that is self-regulating

Cognition critical –

egocentric speech disappears as social speech develops

Once language develops, COGNITION IS LANGUAGE

Cognition mediates language

CONCEPTUAL SIMILARITIES

Vygotsky PiagetVS

1. PARADIGMATIC CONSISTENCY

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

with a slight lean toward nurture

COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVISM

with a slight lean toward nature

2. FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Genetic epistemology*Human development is an interaction

between biology & environment

primarily mediated by an individual’s active construction of meaning

* Theory of knowledge

Sociocultural mediationHuman development is an intermingling of biological and social factors –

“the natural and the cultural” –

that form a single line of sociobiological formation of personality

CONCEPTUAL SIMILARITIES

Vygotsky PiagetVS

Piaget’s Cognitive Periods &Approximate Ages

1. The Sensorimotor Period-Birth to 18-24 months

2. The Preoperational Period-2 to 7 years

3. The Concrete Operational Period-7 to 11 years

4. The Formal Operational Period-over 11 years

Piaget on Language and Thought

1. Egocentrism2. Organization of reality by sensory and motor abilities

1. Increasing symbolic activity2. Beginnings of representation

1. Reversibility2. Conservation3. Seriation4. Classification

1. Development of logico- mathematical structures2. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

CharacteristicsPeriod (age in years)Outstanding LanguageEquivalent

Sensorimotor (0-2)

Preoperational(2-7)

Concrete Operational (7-11)

Formal Operational (over 11)

Language absent until finalmonths of period

1. Egocentric speech2. Socialized speech

1. Beginnings of verbal understanding2. Understanding related to concrete objects

1. Language freed from the concrete2. Verbal ability to express the possible

Vygotsky’s Theory-Basics

l Concept of development

l The social origin of mind

l Speech and development

l Preintellectual speech

l Naive psychology

l Egocentric speech

l Inner speech

Vygotsky & Stages of Language Development

Key Differences: Piaget vs Vygotsky

Individual child constructs view of worldby forming cognitive structures -“the littlescientist”

Equilibration-child acts to regain equilib-rium between current level of cognitivestructures and external stimuli

Emerges as cognitive structures develop

Assimilation and accommodation lead toequilibration

Child independently searches for dataneeded to change cognitive structures,thus enabling child to reach solution

Perspective

Basic psychologicalmechanism

Language

Learning

Problem solving

Child’s cognitive development progressesby social interactions with others (“socialorigins of mind”)

Social interaction, which encourages devel-opment through the guidance of skillfuladults

Language begins as preintellectual speechand gradually develops into a sophisticatedform of inner speech; one of the main forces responsible for cognitive develop-ment

Learning results from the interaction of two processes; biological elementary processes (such as brain development),plus sociocultural interactions

Two aspects of problem solving: 1. Key roleof speech to guide “planful” behavior;2. Joint efforts with others

Piaget Vygotsky